234M Americans Use Mobile Devices

While far from dominant, Apple’s iPhone is now used by one in ten mobile subscribers.

The finding -- just released by comScore, and representing the three-month average period ending October 2011 -- is impressive considering the iPhone was only recently considered a niche, high-end product.

Overall, the study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers, and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.5% market share. After Samsung, LG came in second with 20.6% marketshare, and then Motorola with a 13.6% share. Google Android continued to gain ground in the smartphone market, reaching 46.3% market share during the period.

In the No. 4 position, Apple accounted for a 10.8% share of mobile subscribers -- up 1.3 percentage points since the previous period -- while RIM rounded out the top five with a 6.6% share of the market.

For the three-month average period ending in October, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Also, 90 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones -- up 10% from the preceding three month period.

Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 46.3% market share -- up 4.4 percentage points from the prior three-month period.

Apple maintained its No. 2 position -- growing 1.0 percentage point to 28.1% of the smartphone market. RIM, meanwhile, ranked third with 17.2% share, followed by Microsoft -- with 5.4% -- and Symbian -- with 1.6%.

In October, 71.8% of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device -- up 1.8% points.

Browsers were used by 44% of subscribers -- up 2.9% points -- while downloaded applications were used by 43.8% -- up 3.2% points.

Also of note, accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 2.2 percentage points to 32.3% of mobile subscribers, while game-playing was done by 29.2% of the mobile audience -- up 1.4 percentage points.